I’m not an Elon Musk fanboy. I’m not a fan of electric cars, and not everything he does is genius, and some of it is just strange. But I do appreciate how his purchase of Twitter has put the left into tizzy over no longer being able to censor their opponents (though, as I’m still suspended, Musk needs to fix the broken appeals process).
But this video on the rapid pace of SpaceX expansion shows another reason Musks’ political opponents fear him: The man simply gets shit done.
Because of NASA’s trepidation at the thought of a Starship failure and definitely delaying SpaceX from completing its Crew Dragon or Falcon Heavy contracts for the agency [And probably because the Biden Administration is pissed over Twitter and Musk’s resisting the Flu Manchu shutdowns. -LP], the company de-prioritized Starship Florida’s pad, slowing progress. SpaceX has nonetheless made significant progress. In 13 months, SpaceX has:
- Created foundations
- Modified one of pad 39a’s giant spherical tanks to store cryogenic methane
- Installed miles of plumbing
- Built and assembled a second skyscraper sized Starship launch tower
- Installed the legs of the pad’s Orbital Launch Mount (or OLM)
- Installed a water Deluge system at the base of the OLM
- Assembled most of the OLM’s donut-like mount offsite
- Constructed a new super-sized storage tank
- And delivered a forest of smaller storage tanks.
That sort of breakneck pace is one the old NASA used to work at, the one crewed by the guys that won World War II (plus a smattering of indefatigable German scientist snatched up during Operation Paperclip) and who beat the Soviets to the moon. If today’s NASA had undertaken the expansions SpaceX has on pad 39a, they’d probably be in their third round of finalizing the Request For Proposal to send out to ask other people to bid on the work.
Musk gets shit done and his company is now vital to the Military Industrial Complex.
No wonder they’re scared of him…
Tags: Elon Musk, Florida, International Space Station, space, SpaceX, technology, Texas, Twitter, video
“But this video on the rapid pace of SpaceX expansion shows another reason Musks’ political opponents fear him: The man simply gets shit done.”
Right on both points, but I think they’re reversed and are more closely connected. They hate him more because he gets shit done than his purchase of Twitter. Their hatred is amplified because he took away their echo chamber where they complain constantly people and things that get shit done.
The left viscerally hate anyone and anything that works. They hate things and people that work because they can’t make anything that works and they certainly don’t want to themselves…elitist purists don’t work, that’s for proles. The only thing they like more than not working is bitching endlessly online about the things that work they don’t control and didn’t create. A great example of this is the United States itself.
Nothing can be left (pun intended) alone. Everything must be infiltrated and turned to work for their ideas. Anything that was not political must be retasked to become political. If it can’t be then and only then do they run to their keyboards and phones to shout about how loathsome working things and people are, and then Elon went and bought their echo-chamber. Their adolescent rage can still be heard through the pixels.
That’s why a Tesla was an appropriate Veblen Good prior to the Twitter purchase, but is stained with the mark of the nazi formerly known as Elon. These people are eternal-children.
I am sorry to read about your unemployment travails, as I experienced several long stints myself over my working years. I have also always believed that the so-called “labor shortage” of the last 10-15 years is utter bullshit, brought to you by female-dominated HR departments who can’t find “qualified” job candidates in the same way they can’t find satisfactory men in their lives.
I’m long retired, but my last two job interviews were back in 2010. The first company flew me out for an all day affair, and after five months of them ghosting me I told them where to go in no uncertain terms. The second was with a surly black woman. After ten minutes I should have stopped and said, “Let’s not waste each other’s time. You’re not going to hire me, and I sure as hell don’t want to work for you.” I never heard from them either, but I still regret to this day not doing that.
At least I was employed when I went for those interviews and negotiating from a position of strength. Unfortunately, companies interviewing prospects currently employed don’t seem to understand that it’s a bilateral agreement. Not just a matter of “Why should we hire you?” but also “What are you offering me that’s better than what I have now?”
Good luck in your job search.
I pined for DECADES for NASA (+ congress) to make real progress. That was a long wait for a ship never came into port.
I’ve listened to seven (count ’em! seven!) presidents promise a return to the Moon. It’s still years away, repeatedly delayed, and this was supposed to be the “fast” plan (from 2011) because it’s re-using Shuttle parts, or so they say. And THAT was a re-vamp of a previous plan (from 2004!!!!!!!!) which again was supposed to be quicker and cheaper by re-using Shuttle parts & manufacturers.
I’ve given up on NASA in terms of progress in manned spaceflight. TBH I’d like to have those decades of waiting and empty promises, back.
SpaceX? Like LP says, they get shit done.
Oh, and … this video is great … and I think it was paraphrased by an AI. SpaceX has pretty much always called their transporter-erector a “strongback”, yet in this video I kept hearing “sturdy back” and “robust back”.
[…] Battleswarm- Why the Left fears Musk […]
Third draft Request for Proposal, plus a leak to their buds at EPA and/or NRDC that a Crested Frond Whoopingcough Warbler had been spotted in the area of Pad 39a.
“Currently, Falcon 9’s completed 66 launches.”
That is not right. SpaceX has built over 66 boosters. 11 of them have 10 or more flights, 9 are still flying, 4 of the 9 have over 15 flights. That’s just the boosters with 10+ fights.
As a reference, there were 5 Space Shuttle Orbiters with the workhorse Discovery flying 39 times.
I think the way to look at Musk’s success with SpaceX is comparing him to Henry Ford. NASA does two things that hurt it. First, like most DoD type procurements, they have a supply chain that nearly touches every Congressional district. That’s insane to operate. Second, they build only a few bespoke examples of flight hardware. SpaceX on the other hand designs hardware for an assembly line. While they intend and attempt to reuse as much of their hardware as possible; they can handle losses. They can handle losses because the replacements are already on the assembly line and capable of being updated to fix faults found in previous flights. If too far along in assembly, hardware with known defects are tested to failure to gain more information on the defects.
Because they often reuse hardware, SpaceX overall operational costs are much lower than anyone else can meet. A launch customer doesn’t have to buy an expendable rocket. They only have to pay the refurbishment costs and propellant.
I’m not a fanboy either, but I have worked in the industry. What Musk has done with SpaceX is bring traditional manufacturing concepts to an industry that prized bespoke designs. It is almost that simple. It also helps he has a personal mission of wanting to get to Mars.
I think that’s supposed to be “66 launches *this year*”. It’s also a little behind; including FH launches, Bob Zimmerman puts their total at 73 for the year, almost half of all launches by the whole world with a couple months left to go to pad their count.
h/t behindtheblack.com
The video is from three weeks ago.